


in a year's time

by orphan_account



Category: Korean Drama, 너를 기억해 | Hello Monster
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-13
Updated: 2015-08-13
Packaged: 2018-04-14 12:10:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,270
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4564149
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Cha Ji-an lives a year of her life without Lee Hyun, and at the end of it she's still in love with him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	in a year's time

**Author's Note:**

> lmao idk this is really sucky ;u; 
> 
> this was such a great drama the last ten minutes of episode 16 i was basically just screaming the whole time tbh. 
> 
> anyway, here's some random stuff my brain came up with at 2 am in the morning and i typed up for some reason. 
> 
> these two kill me, seriously.

He stops by three times, like they agreed. One time she 'stops by,' three times he does. She's walking home when she sees him, standing there waiting. 

At first, she doesn't remember the agreement. She's confused, pleasantly surprised, asks, "Why are you here?

"I stopped as I was passing by." Then she remembers, and smiles; he kept his promise.

There's a feeling in her gut that tells her there's something wrong, but she's not sure what it is and she's not sure how to express it, or even if she should. So she just takes it at face value, makes conversation on a variety of topics, teases him and takes his teasing. The feeling doesn't go away, it keeps on bothering her in the back of her mind. But it never becomes clear enough for her to puzzle it out, to do something about it.

The second time is much the same as the first one, and the feeling remains, still as unclear as ever. She considers stopping by his house, but never really makes up her mind or get around to it. Later; she'll do it later. There's no rush.

It's the third time that the feeling becomes something solid. "I might go somewhere for a while." Immediately she's filled with questions. She asks the most obvious one first.

"Where?"

He just smiles.

After that, he disappears. As if he was never there, even. Her first thought is Attorney Jeong, who she hasn't seen since Lee Joon-young disappeared. She hasn't had a reason to stop by Hyun's house, after all.

That's how she discovers all three are gone, and things start clicking into place. Lee Joon-young always committed murders that left no body behind. He stopped by to fulfill a promise, pay back a debt. She didn't realize, but now it looks so obvious, so clear. For a moment she'd thought that there was--something, she wasn't sure what. She should've stopped by his house one more time. She should've known what was off, should've confronted him. She should've--

Lee Hyun was someone she thought she was close to, someone she thought she'd begun to understand. Someone she'd--

(fallen in love with.)

It was too much to hope for that things might work out, really. Now there's just a bitter taste left in her mouth, a curious emptiness she doesn't know how to fill. All three are gone, just like that. She'd been so busy aiming for the best resolution she hadn't prepared, hadn't really thought about how she would deal with the worst-case scenario.

Now, there's nothing she can do. She doesn't know where to start searching for any of them (either of them, because Attorney Jeong...), and she can't. She is Cha Ji-an, and she has her own life that doesn't entirely revolve around them, around _him._

How did she get so accustomed to Lee Hyun in such a short time? Though it wasn't a short time, technically speaking, but a sporadic something across twenty years. Still, it doesn't make sense. Without him there's just something wrong, something hanging in the air that bothers her. It's stupid. He was a wild animal she thought she'd tamed, who she thought would stay, but he ran away and she was left feeling hurt, knowing she should've known better.

But there's nothing she can do about it, not now, so she moves on with her life. She does her job. A new team member joins them to replace Eunbok (who Seungjoo visits frequently).

Maybe she searches around for any mention of Professor David Lee, and maybe she's disappointed every time when she finds nothing. No matter how many times she's looked before, she still hopes, and it hurts. (And that reminds her of Lee Joon-young and his 'gift' to her, and maybe she should stop hoping for something, but...)

She never forgets, because she can't, but she doesn't let it rule her life. Which means occasionally thinking _he would know how to solve this_ when they hit a roadblock in a case, means wishing she'd stopped by his house just one more time, means entertaining thoughts of how their lives could have been under different circumstances, but nothing more. (Maybe yelling at her own mental version of Hyun sometimes, too, for being a jerk, but that doesn't count because he deserves it.)

That's how one year passes by, how she finds herself heading up the stairs to the crime scene. That's how she sees him standing there, his back to them. For a second she thinks, it's a dream, because it's been a year and she hasn't seen or heard anything from him or anything about him. It's been a year and she has yelled at her own mental version of Hyun enough that she could probably rage at him for days without running of things to say. It's been a whole entire year, and why does she still love him after all that time?

It's not a dream, it turns out. It's reality, so she has the opportunity to finally yell at the real Lee Hyun and not the imaginary version in her head. She's got a whole year's worth of anger to unload, but she doesn't end up doing it.

Seungjoo hugs him (which is awkward, as he doesn't hug back; honestly, he just seems to be taken by surprise and unsure how to react) and Myung-woo makes an effort that gets smartly rebuffed. Ji Won is left out of the whole thing. And Ji-an, she... doesn't say anything. Just stares, for a while. What she wants to say is probably best left to a private conversation.

They talk as they walk. He's his usual vague self and she doesn't really get any answers. What he did in that whole year he was gone is a mystery. What he remembered is a mystery. She still wants to beat him up.

At least he says he won't leave, and that makes her happier than it ought to, really, just that simple "no." A single word and she can't stay so angry, doesn't have such a desire to beat him up anymore There's a few moments of awkwardness as she tries to meet his gaze while at the same time wanting to avoid it. He's completely calm, in comparison, just like usual. She's embarrassing herself and he's, well, him.

"You missed me?"

She nods, looking away from him.

"A lot?"

She nods again. Even if she did really want to yell at him and punch him in the face (or just in general), she missed him. It wasn't until he left that she realized how used to him being there she'd become. 

He doesn't say anything, just moves forward to hug her; not awkwardly, thankfully. It's... nice. It means a lot, coming from him, and the year starts to melt away. More likely than not she'll never learn what he got up to during that year. But he's here now, and he'll _be_ here, and who cares about a single year when you've got the whole future?

They don't quite move away from each other, not entirely, and she's not sure what to do. She... kind of wants to kiss him, but maybe that's not... she doesn't want to move away, at the same time.

Her heart nearly stops when he tucks her hair behind her ear. And her anger is forgotten, and everything feels right, no more niggling feelings bothering her, no loneliness, when they kiss. 

It's been a year, an entire year, and she is _still_ in love with him.

(At least, he's in love with her, too.)

**Author's Note:**

> i'm working under the assumption that hyun didn't say anything about the whole min-getting-stabbed thing because that's what makes the most sense to me given his interactions with ji-an later, like i feel like they wouldn't make sense if she knew?? 
> 
> in her narration she mentions min disappearing in a bodiless murder so i figure she probably put two and two together later and figured that out herself. girl had a whole year to do that. 
> 
> idk, that's what makes sense to me, imma roll with it


End file.
